Trees Being into woodworking and tree identification simultaneously is super problematic. I want to use trees and save them at the same time. Another frustration is that lumber folks and tree science folks do not agree. The most popular lumber tree in the Western United States is the Douglas-fir (the dash
Camping! This weekend, Atlas and I went camping at Stone Mountain State Park, in North-Western North Carolina. Bailey's not big on camping, and we don't have any air pads or air-mattresses, so I told her she was welcome to have a couple days off and just hang out at home with
Autophagy One of the benefits of fasting and exercise is activating autophagy: the process by which your body "hunkers down" and recycles junk build-up. Learn about the science behind autophagy, how to reach it, and why it's necessary for a long and healthy life. AutophagyThese are kind of a big deal
Myths About Drinking Water LifeOmic - the company I work for - has a high focus on wellness and health science, with all of our apps having scientific backing [https://lifeapps.io/apps/life-extend/]. I brought up that hydration would make a good additional wellness "pillar" to our existing 5 of Vegetables, Mindfulness, Physical
webrtc WebRTC with async/await Basic WebRTC connection setup can be confusing to understand, and there really is a lot going on that is black magic. Even so, just getting a single page connection going is confusing. I wanted to try writing some async/await code to test out browser compatibility and try different patterns,
technology Hacking Alexa to send Arbitrary Texts I finally jumped on the Alexa bandwagon this week, and picked up an Amazon Dot. I got the Dot, because it's a lot cheaper than the Echo, and I already have an old speaker hanging around that I can use with it. Just to clarify - the Dot is a
webrtc WebRTC Phone User Experience Last year, &Yet wrote a great series [https://blog.andyet.com/2016/01/21/att-webrtc-ux-series/] of blog posts with AT&T about WebRTC UX. We love to see this kind of focus in the WebRTC [https://webrtc.org/] community, because it shows an intersection of classic technology and modern web
books The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky Note: Due to translation differences and conventions, some names (including that of the author himself) may be spelled differently than in other sources. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a classic drama. The book is largely comprised of major dramatic scenes (which, incidentally, lends itself well to adaptation as a
software Simple Image Lazy Loading with Ghost I recently put up a post [https://blog.xdumaine.com/a-year-in-review-2015] that happened to contain a bunch of images, and realized that the initial experience was kind of crappy, due to loading all of them at once. There were really two things I could do to improve this: lazy load
experiences A Year In Review 2015 2015 was a year of ups and downs, but I came out on top. I tried a lot of new things, and survived pretty happy and pretty healthy. Some notable events took place this year - life changing events that I'll probably never forget. Some of them were really incredible,
webrtc Featured Surviving Mandatory HTTPS in Chrome Chrome 47 brought a new change, and one that's caused a lot of confusion and irritation for some WebRTC developers. Despite the warnings and PSAs from the WebRTC team at Google, and the console deprecation warning, some didn't get the message that getUserMedia now requires that the requesting app be
software Choosing a mobile platform to target As a mobile developer, I often get questions like "Nice site! When's the mobile app coming?" or "we really need an app for this specific need, which platform should we use? or even "I want to make an app, but I don't know what yet - should I target iOS
javascript Using Webtask.io for Secure API Tokens Single Page Applications are awesome. One downside is that static SPAs often have to authenticate with some service or API in order to coordinate some communication, access some data, or connect to other users, and that connection has an inherent security risk: How do you connect to a secure service
finances Stacked Snowball Debt Repayment Paying down debt is hard. I don't want to go into all the details about how and why to pay down debt because other [http://www.daveramsey.com/blog/how-the-debt-snowball-method-works] people [http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/paying-off-credit-card-debt-quicker/] have [http://www.lifehack.org/articles/money/how-pay-off-debt-fast-using-the-stack-method.html] already done that better
software Improved Chrome Extension UX, again A few months ago, Philipp Hancke from &yet posted Improved Screensharing UX on Talky [https://blog.andyet.com/2015/03/30/talky-first-time-ux-matters] which specifically addresses the UX for first-time users. The problem being addressed is threefold: 1. In Chrome, desktop capture for screen sharing is enabled via the desktopCapture Chrome
software Passions and Tools I'm of the (unpopular) opinion that being excited about the framework or platform you're using as the focal point of the work you're doing, you're focused on the wrong thing. People are going nuts about Ember and React, .NET coming to Mac, Rails or Django. All of these are just
travel A Guide to New Orleans Coffee New Orleans is oft talked about as a party city - and indeed it is - but it is also much more. We went armed with recommendations from some friends and co-workers, but without any solid plans - just a list of ideas of things to do or places to
climbing Rocky Face Yesterday I had the opportunity to climb at Rocky Face Mountain Recreation Area [http://rockyfacepark.com/rock-climbing/]. Rocky Face is a man-made crag. It's the remnants of an old quarry that has been cleaned up, bolted, and permitted for climbing. I enjoyed Rocky Face a lot. The climbing can be
technology Featured Tesla Still Can't Harvest Lightning Today, in a shocking moment at a Tesla press conference Elon Musk, CEO of the electric car manufacturer, admits "No, we don't know how to harvest lightning yet." In the wake of being named Consumer Reports top overall car for a second year in a row, investors were expecting to
climbing Clarification on some climbing terms A few weeks ago, Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell completed a grueling 19 day free climb of the Dawn Wall, a face of Yosemite National Park's gargantuan mountain El Capitan. I wanted to write a brief clarification of what constitutes different types of climbs: Free Climb: Climbing a wall using
technology How to Identify a Scam On Social Media Scams and Phishing are pretty common in email, and email providers like Gmail, Yahoo, and Outlook are getting better and better at letting you know when an email might not be totally legitimate, or might put you at risk. They can do this because there are a number of very
charity Give I'm raising $4000 for the San Francisco HIV Foundation and cycling 545 miles to do it. Every year, thousands of cyclists raise money to fight HIV and ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles as a part of the AIDS/LifeCycle. Unfortunately every year, thousands of more people are infected
